With as picky as he is about eating, I'm pleasantly surprised about his height and weight! Yahoo! He's still teeny, of course, but he's almost graduated to size 4 shorts (not pants, those things are ridiculously long!).

He's due for another check with the ENT about roto-rootering his ears out. I should probably schedule that before Speech Garden starts this summer to make sure he can hear with the SLPs are saying, huh?

Anyhoo. With all the behavior talk in the last post, I forgot to put all this in. Way to grow, Chasey!!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

On the heels of Chase's bad note that came home from school today:Chase did not have a good day at school. He refused to follow our routine and directions.

I've been thinking a lot about what our expectations should be for his behavior (not just because of the note, just in general over the last 6 months), and how we can change it. One of the focuses on his IEP for next year is to improve his attention on task. Read: get him to focus for more than 2 minutes.

For the longest time, I've just chalked this up to 'developmental delay', but in talking with some other Ds mommies, I'm noticing that this isn't the norm. Their kids can sit at circle time. Their kids will follow directions. Theirs will complete an activity without having to be redirected a trillion times. Wha..whaaat?!?

I've also talked with some moms who have seen the same behavior in their kids (who are a couple years older than Chase) and have recently been diagnosed with ADD in addition to Ds. Awesome. More letters! But, they've also said that once diagnosed and properly medicated, the treatment has been spectacular, and is largely responsible for their children's success in inclusion classrooms.

Now, I don't want to immediately jump on the ADD bandwagon. I don't think that Chase needs to be drugged out to make my life easier...but I want to begin to look harder at this. Is it? Isn't it? What else can we try to fix the problem behaviors?

I talked with our pediatrician today about getting a referral to see a pediatrician/psychologist who specializes in behavior modification. It sounds like dog training to me. BUT maybe they can give us some advice, some new tricks, or even just help us to document where we are and what we try so that later, if we hit Kindergarten time and there are still big issues, we won't be starting at square one.

Other than that, Chase's 4 year appointment was uneventful, if you don't count the fact that the entire time I was talking to the doctor, Chase and Gavin were taking turns leaping from the exam table into my arms, and Chase was yelling at Gavin every time he "budged" in line. Dr G scored big points, though, as she said, "I can really tell he's making big strides in speech!"

Monday, May 9, 2011

I don't always take the time to give sisterly advice. My relationship with my little brother often centered around hurling insults at each other and finding ways to achieve maximum annoyance levels.

Luckily, we both have grown up and live far away from each other.

Really, though, my brother Scott has inexplicably turned into quite the amazing man, and in turn, has found quite the awesome bride. Today they got married on the beach, in possibly the most honest, perfect wedding I've ever seen (and my opinion may or may not have been influenced by the key lime cheesecake at the reception).

By no means am I any expert on marriage, but I feel the need to dispense some advice...mostly because Bryan and I have ten years on them, we've made some mistakes to learn from, and I play the part of the know-it-all-big-sister well.

So, hear's to you, Scott and Rachel: marriage advice, Maddex-style:

1. Appreciate the quirks. When you stop seeing them as cute, they turn into annoying, and that, my friend, is bad.
2. Take time to understand your spouse's ways of coping. I'm a gabber, he is not. When he doesn't gab to me about his problems, it's not because he doesn't care. It's because it doesn't make him feel better.
3. Little things matter. Leave notes in each other's suitcases when they leave on a trip. Pick up an extra Kit Kat bar at the grocery store to share at home. Stock the fridge with his favorite beer.
4. Call each other on your lunch breaks.
5. Back each other up in all situations.
6. Control the in-laws on your respective sides.
7. Never take your spouse for granted. Look really really hard to find the amazing in the every day.
8. Practice true forgiveness.
9. Go to a marriage seminar, read a book on marriage...build a strong marriage before you have to fix it.
10. Take the time to enjoy each other...don't get too involved in the seriousness.